


between the shadow and the soul

by moongirls



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Model UN, Pining, reader is a bitch bc im a bitch and im projecting lmfao, that's right i wrote a self indulgent model un au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 05:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12905031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moongirls/pseuds/moongirls
Summary: The first time you see him, your first thought is that he’s not going to last a day. Then, of course, you realize how dramatic that sounds, and laugh at yourself for getting so worked up over ModelfuckingUN.or, you're finally going to win Best Delegate, and you'll step on whoever gets in your way. You know, except for your cute second-in-command.





	between the shadow and the soul

**Author's Note:**

> some general things you may want to know about MUN since i accidentally threw a couple technical terms in here:
> 
> each participant in model un is called a **delegate** , and you represent a country in the united nations. you're assigned to a **committee** which is essentially like the event you're competing in. you have committee sessions where you debate and write. each committee has a **chair** which is someone (not a delegate) who is part of the organizing/hosting body and is in charge of organizing and leading the committee.  
>  the goal of model un is to pass **resolutions** which are papers detailing how the committee will solve the problem at hand. until they've been voted on, resolutions are known as **working papers**. resolutions are written in a very specific format, which consists of **preambs** and **operative clauses**.  
>  during committee, the majority of the time is spent debating. there's a specific procedure/protocol for this known as parliamentary procedure or **parli pro**.  
>  in parli pro, there are different kinds of debates, most importantly the **speaker's list** , **moderated caucuses or mods** , and **unmoderated caucuses, or unmods**. during the speaker's list and mods, you need to be called on to speak, but unmods are like a free for all where you can stand up and walk around and talk to whoever you want to talk to.  
>  i know this sounds complicated but i PROMISE you don't need to know all this. also i PROMISE mun is fun, so you should try it if that's something you can do!!

The first time you see him, your first thought is that he’s not going to last a day. Then, of course, you realize how dramatic that sounds, and laugh at yourself for getting so worked up over Model _fucking_ UN.

* * *

He sits next to you for the first committee session, because he’s Azerbaijan and you’re Botswana. You’re thrilled with your assignment, because it means that (a) nobody knows your actual policy on any issues, so you can make up whatever you like, and (b) you’re near the top of the alphabet, so you can force everyone to put your country at the top of the working paper under the pretense of using alphabetical order to “make it fair.” You doubt that he knows any of these techniques, of course, because he looks as inexperienced as they come.

His leg is shaking, which you can _feel_ against yours. He’s chewing on his lip and doesn’t raise his placard to speak until he’s written out what he plans to say verbatim. It’s obvious what an easy target he is, and normally that would be the only way you’d see him. You take him into your bloc, steal his ideas, make him write clauses for your paper, and don’t let him present or answer questions about the paper. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, you’ve just won Best Delegate.

Somehow, this is different. This goddamn boy, with his stupid brown hair and stupid sweet smile, is different.

You’re not sure _why_ he’s different, so you treat him just as you would otherwise. Which means like a fucking doormat.

* * *

Your positions are surprisingly similar so you scribble a note on your pink Post-It notes and shove it towards him. It’s the standard one you send out to everyone you want to work with, although it crosses your mind that you might want to send this boy something different.  

> _Hey! I loved your speech and you brought up some great points. Why don’t you meet me in unmod to talk about working together?_
> 
> _\- Botswana_

You watch as he unfolds the note next to you, watch his brow furrow as he reads it, watch him glance up and smile at you and make your breath catch a little, because _goddamn,_ he has a nice smile.

And then you realize that Sweden, who’s most likely a power delegate and most definitely a threat, has just made an excellent point that you should probably try and counter when it’s your turn to speak. But see, here’s the problem. You have no fucking idea what Sweden said, and honestly, you couldn’t care less.

* * *

You meet up with your motley crew during the first unmoderated caucus, and are thrilled with what you see. You’ve got Venezuela, a pudgy, pompous boy who clearly knows enough about Model UN to write some excellent clauses, but not enough to actually threaten you during Q&A. You’ve got Thailand, a ginger girl who’s fiery enough to be an excellent delegate someday, but for right now is just an inexperienced freshman. You’ve got Yemen, a tall black-haired boy who may be a threat soon, but seems to want to cooperate for now. And you’ve got Azerbaijan, who’s sending around a sweet smile and also an obvious look of confusion.

You’re sure more people will try to join your bloc in the next 5 minutes (and of course you’ll welcome them — you can’t do all the work alone!), but this will be your core team, and they’ll do splendidly.

You start the unmod off by taking control of the discussion, and encouraging everyone to introduce themselves and list their key ideas for your resolution.

Azerbaijan begins, saying, “Hi, I’m Azerbaijan, and I think we should be focusing on the human-rights side of the issue and on providing aid to refugees,” which is great, although conventional. He then manages to fuck it up by saying, “Oh, and my name is Neville,” which, of course, makes you want to _scream_. You don’t introduce yourself in Model UN — nobody cares who you are or what you like or what you do back home. You’re just known by your assigned country’s name, and the only things people care about are your position on the topic, and the ease with which they can manipulate you.

But this really shouldn’t bother you, because it just proves your hunch that Azerbaijan — Neville — would be a perfect target. So you expect to just leave it at that, and let Yemen and Venezuela secretly laugh at him a little, and then you may join in later too, because sometimes you really do need to be a bitch to win.

Of course, that plan fails, because next thing you know, your stupid mouth is saying, “Brilliant! Thanks for giving us your name, by the way. It always makes the bloc feel more like a team. I’m (y/n), and I’m Botswana.”

And then your mouth gets back on track with your brain, and rattles off a few ideas, and interrupts Yemen when he speaks so he doesn’t seem too powerful. In the meantime, your brain is going a mile a minute trying to figure out why the fuck you just protected Neville, who apparently, you can’t think of as Azerbaijan anymore.

* * *

As you’re all flooding out of the room after that first committee session, you wave your bloc over to you. Just as you’d predicted, your bloc had doubled during that unmod and the next. You’ve decided that the most important ones now in your bloc are Yemen, Venezuela, and Nepal, a muscular boy who looks like he lives in a frat house.

You had planned to kick the other powerful delegates out of your bloc at this point, but you suppose you can’t do anything for now. Yemen hasn’t done anything you can use against him yet, Venezuela will be handy when it comes time to write clauses, and many of the newcomers in your bloc will leave if you try to go head-to-head with Nepal.

All in all, you don’t feel quite as secure in your position as you did at the start of the session. With three other skilled delegates all vying to undermine you, this is going to be a delicate power play, and you’re not sure you can do it alone.

You frown, remembering a certain technique that some of the delegates from your school like to use. It’s certainly risky, but you do need the support.

Well, if it fails, it fails. Frankly, you’re tired, and all you want to do is go back to your room and collapse, but you need to be _on_ for a little while longer.

As your bloc coalesces around you, you start rattling off their duties for tonight. You’re hoping to get most of your paper written by the end of tomorrow’s morning committee session, and that requires everyone to follow your plan to a T.

You pass around your notebook and have people write their phone numbers in it, and when Nepal tries the same thing, you subtly rip out the page with the phone numbers in it, so he doesn’t get the chance to create the group chat and appear like a leader. As everyone quiets down, waiting for someone to let them go (you secretly grin as you realize what they’re waiting for — it means they already see you as a leader), you throw out your ploy.

“If you have any questions about anything, send them to me or Neville — Azerbaijan,” you say, hoping this doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass.

Most of the delegates in your bloc seem to take this in stride, which means they don’t understand what you’ve just done, which is good, since it means they’re not experienced enough to realize what you’re trying to do.

Nepal, however, smirks, and you think you see Yemen’s eyebrows lift a bit. It’s unusual for a powerful delegate to take a less skilled one under their wing, but it happens. It’s hard to pull off, since it means sharing the spotlight, but if you play it right, it can help you to maintain control of an unruly bloc.

Neville, of course, doesn’t seem to realize any of this. He looks a little surprised to hear you say his name, but he takes it in stride, as you had hoped he would, and says, “Yeah, I can handle your questions too, I guess.”

And you send him your sweetest fake-smile, usually used to charm chairs, and then he has the nerve to _frown_ at you.

* * *

 You text him later, privately. Since you’ve promoted him to your right-hand man, it’s only logical that you keep tabs on him.

> [Delivered 11:44 PM]
> 
> _hey! it’s (y/n) (botswana)_
> 
> _do u want to meet up tmrw before committee to go over the clauses??_

For some reason, you spend a moment staring at the message after you send it, wondering if the two question marks were strange, if you should have used _you_ instead of _u_ , if you should have ditched the punctuation.

And then Lavender, your roommate, asks, “Who’re you texting?”

“Just a guy in my committee — he’s the one I’m working with,” you say, wondering why she asked. You like her, of course, (and you’d certainly hope the feeling’s mutual), but you don’t know her particularly well. At least, not well enough for her to be interested in who you’re texting.

Lavender looks embarrassed for a moment, a small laugh bubbling out of her. “Oh, sorry! It’s just that that’s the face I always make when I text my boyfriend and I thought — nevermind what I thought,” she cuts herself off, clearly wanting to move past her slip.

You laugh along with her, and say that it’s okay, you probably _were_ making a weird face, you do have the weirdest facial expressions, yeah, it _is_ so funny, and so on.

She asks you if you want to go out to get a midnight snack with her, and you of course say yes and offer to text some of the other girls to meet you at the bakery she wants to try.

In fact, you move on entirely from the awkward moment, and it’s completely forgotten by the two of you, because you’re certainly not thinking about how you make a “boyfriend face” when you text Neville (and what the hell is a boyfriend face, anyway, Lavender?). And you’re _definitely_ not thinking about how your phone is sitting in your pocket, leaden, without a single damn text from him.

* * *

Neville does text you back, eventually. As you’re heading home from the 24-hour bookstore where you, Lavender, Pansy, and Hermione had ended up, your phone buzzes in your pocket. You quickly pull it out, nearly dropping it in your haste, because his response is _crucial_ to your planning, obviously. 

> [Received 12:57 AM]
> 
> _Yeah sounds good_
> 
> _Do u want to meet at the starbucks?_
> 
> _Like 7 ish_
> 
>  
> 
> [Delivered 12:58 AM]
> 
> _perfect!!_

And of course, the moment you send it, you realize you’ve done it _again_ with the fucking double punctuation.

* * *

The next morning finds you at the Starbucks at 6:54 in the morning, berating yourself for staying up the night before. It happens every single conference — you head out with your friends for a “quick 20-minute food run” and end up heading back to your room an hour later with two clauses still unwritten. And then you write them, and you curse yourself the entire time for scheduling an early meeting (which you always do, because it is _key_ to make sure that everyone else’s writing is up to par), and then you fall asleep with your stockings still on, and wake up in the morning and swear you’ll maintain a better sleep schedule at the next conference.

You yawn and bring your cup to your lips again, flinching when the scalding coffee hits your tongue. God, you just want Neville to show up so you can get this over with and then leave.

Like magic, of course, he appears right then.

“Hey,” he says, hanging his satchel over the back of the chair next to you. _A satchel — how pretentious_ , you note disinterestedly.

You hardly look at him while he heads off to order his drink, choosing instead to get out your laptop, which has the working paper on the Google Doc you created, as well as to finish off your lemon pound cake, which, you reflect, is the best thing you’ve encountered today.

And then Neville is beside you, maneuvering his long limbs into his chair (you hadn’t realize how tall he was, had you?), and setting down a cup of tea — fucking _tea_ — with a little splash, and again saying, “Hey.”

“Hey,” you reply, not bothering to slip into your peppy Best Delegate persona. You really should, but you don’t have the energy, and Neville seems nice enough that he won’t use it against you. And speaking of what you should do, you _shouldn’t_ be thinking about how sweet he is, or how his leg is brushing yours _again_ , or how he’s leaning over your shoulder to see your laptop screen, his minty breath on your cheek, his arm next to yours on the table, his chest brushing your back — and _fuck,_ he’s kind of built, isn’t he?

You pull yourself back to Earth and turn to face him, which promptly sends you back to outer space.

Because yesterday, he looked like any other male delegate really, with the standard suit and the subtly gelled hair and the boring tie. Today, however, Neville’s wearing his button-down and slacks, but his blazer is draped over his chair next to his satchel, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he hasn’t gelled his hair, which is actually fairly tame, except for one little tuft on the back of his head that is sticking up, and _shit,_ you’re staring, aren’t you?

You don’t have time for this, you remind yourself. Revelations about cute delegates can wait, have to wait until after the awards ceremony. You shove the thought out of your mind and ask Neville, “So what do you think so far?”

He turns to you, and offers a small smile ( _fuck,_ his smile), and says, “I think it’s pretty good.”

* * *

Over the next forty-five minutes, you learn that Neville’s last name is Longbottom, he apparently used to go to school with Hermione, he loves botany, and he’s an excellent writer and editor of working papers.

He learns that you play the violin, your best friend’s name is Pansy, you despise tea of all forms, and you desperately want to go to Harvard University.

You’re sure to follow that final revelation with a self-deprecating joke about how impossible that is, just in case he thinks you’re egotistical. If you’re being completely honest, you _are_ egotistical, but somehow it’s important that Neville doesn’t know that.

You actually finish editing the paper within twenty-five minutes, but you’re both so engaged in your conversation by now that you stay in the Starbucks, talking and ignoring the looks you get from the girl next to you, who seems to want to drink her latte in dead silence.

Your phone buzzes, and you see a text from your faculty advisor.

> [Received 7:49 AM]
> 
> _Remember that committee starts in 40 mins. Good luck!_

Grabbing Neville’s arm, you jump out of your chair, wobbling slightly on your high heels.

“We have to go!” you exclaim, swearing internally. For once you keep that inside though, because somehow you don’t think Neville would be a fan of swearing.

“What? Why?” he says, pulling out _his_ phone. “We’ve got forty minutes; there’s no rush.”

And then it hits you again, that Neville may be kind and sweet and handsome, but he’s not a good delegate. He doesn’t know that you need to get to committee half an hour early to snare good seats and network with other delegates. He didn’t know the structure for preambulatory clauses, which you’d ignored, because preambs are bullshit and really, people only care about operative clauses. He didn’t realize _why_ you were working with him in the first place, which is, of course, that you thought he was weak and easy to control.

You still think that, but you also think that he’s friendly and funny and tactile in a _good_ way, and while you probably _could_ control him still, you really don’t want to.

Unfortunately, because you’re a raging bitch, that’s not what comes out of your mouth.

Instead, you say, “God, don’t you know _anything?_ We need to get there half an hour early at _least_ , or else fucking Kenya’s going to take over committee, and then it’s bye-bye awards for both of us.”

Neville’s eyes widen, and you immediately wish you could take those words back. For a second you think he’s going to cry or something, but then his face goes utterly blank and you _wish_ he would start bawling, just so he wouldn’t be staring at you like he doesn’t even know you.

Which, objectively, he doesn’t, but somehow you feel that while talking to him for the last half hour, you’ve shown a bit of yourself that nobody except Pansy and maybe Luna is allowed to see.

Still completely unreadable, he says, “Sorry, I didn’t know. Let’s head back. Don’t want you to lose Best Delegate, right?”

And now it’s your turn to be wide-eyed, because Neville’s pissed at you, pissed in a way you didn’t think he could be, not this sweet boy with a smile like sunshine.

And it would be an understatement to say that this is really bad, because Neville is your second-in-command in committee, and you need to be on the same page at all times, and because when delegates go into committee pissed, they inevitably crash and burn.

And, of course, this is also really bad because you _like_ Neville, and you like him a _lot_ .

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from soneto xvii by pablo neruda, which is one of my favorite poems of all time. also, i'll probably end up writing another model un au with another character, so stay tuned i guess!!  
> find me on [tumblr](http://stevharington.tumblr.com)


End file.
